CoastersRZ

Just head on over to Coney Island Central. I can assure you that Coney Island never was completely deserted after Kings Island opened in 1972. In fact, Sunlite pool was open in 1972! Yes, it would be many years before rides started sprouting back up at Coney, but it is far from desolate. In fact, this past season was one of Coney`s best seasons since 1972. And, as always with amusement parks, expect plenty of changes for next season!

People are not going to buy a season pass to find out what the park is adding. In actuality, the reverse is true. Some people may not buy their season pass UNTIL they find out what new attractions the park will have for the 2008 season. Kings Island has sometimes waited to announce stuff in January and February. Since these months are after the holiday season and in the heart of the offseason, season pass sales are likely at the lowest point for the year. Making an announcement then would be a way for the park to drum up some chatter about the park, as well as increase interest in season passes. That is not to say that the park ALWAYS announces new attractions in January or February. Sometimes, they will announce new attractions in the fall. Or if it is a large project like Son of Beast, they will announce it in May, the year before it opens.

Exactly the point. You can`t single out Six Flags for not caring for their rides and attractions if you have never been to a Six Flags park to experience their rides and attractions to see firsthand how well they maintain them.

Nice trip report. Glad to hear some response from Beech Bend`s holiday event. I`ve never made it out to Beech Bend, and really want to. Especially since I`ve never ridden a coaster designed by GCI yet!

Well, plans can and do change from time to time. Nothing will be official until the park opens in April.

Yeah. I have to agree with Ronny on this one. The ride`s look is deceiving. This ride packs quite a little punch, and offers a really out of control ride experience! I know I was surprised by how intense the ride was after the ride was over!

I just posted a photo trip report here of a visit that Ryan, Dane, Ronny, Gabe and I made to Krazy City yesterday.

Where: Krazy City, the new indoor amusement park that just recently opened in Tri-County Mall. Krazy City is located on the upper level of the mall, in a space that was vacated by JCPenney when they closed their store at the mall. More information, including hours of operation and pricing can be found on the Krazy City website. When: Friday, December 28, 2007 from about 5pm through 9:15pm Who: Ryan (Boddah1994), Dane, Gabriel (Captain Nemo), Ronny (Gordon Bombay), and myself (CoastersRZ). The Trip: We arrived at five and bought our "points." At Krazy City, all of the attractions and video games require point to play. All the points are added to a plastic card, similar to a Kings Island season pass. We all opted to buy 100 points ($20), and you have to pay $1 to buy the actual card which carries your points (so in total, we each bought 104 points). The first ride of the day was on the Krazy City Speedway. This attraction requires 20 points. These are electric powered go carts. These carts have a little zip to them. With the polished concrete floors, it was easy to accidentally spin out your car if you took a turn too fast. Especially car one, which we were told was the fastest car by a ride operator. Unfortunately, I did not grab any pictures of this attraction . Definitely a fun ride, and in my opinion, better then the go carts at Kings Island. By the end of the night, we would rack up three rides on this. After our first ride, we then headed down to the mall food court to grab some food. When we got back into Krazy City, it was time to tackle some of the other rides. All of the rides cost 14 points, per person. First on tap was the Tornado. This ride is made by Wisdom Rides, and is a typical whirl and hurl. And, each car can control how fast they spin! The next ride on tap was the Skyscraper. This is probably the most intense ride at Krazy City. This ride is not a tame ride, as it is rather fast, and provides a rather long ride cycle. The ride makes several revolutions going clockwise, then switches to some revolutions counterclockwise. Then it repeats that cycle once more. We only rode this ride once, but I wouldn`t have minded riding it a couple more times!'' Those are all the rides that we rode while there. However, there are several other rides there. There is a kiddie swing ride similar to Backyardigan`s Swing Along at Kings Island. There is also a small bumper car ride. Another ride that we did not do is the Spring Ride. This is a MoseRides drop ride. It is nearly identical to the Scream Machine at Coney Island. However, the Spring Ride at Krazy City is considerably smaller then Coney`s and is more the size of a traditional Frog Hopper. While there, we also played a couple of games of four person air hockey. Additionally, we played a couple of games of bowling on the 2/3 scale bowling alley. The bowling alley cost twenty points per person, but provided a good twenty minutes to half an hour of entertainment. We also played a round of Deep Sea Mini Golf. This is a nine hole, black light miniature golf adventure. This was probably the least fun attraction that we did at Krazy City. The course was not very elaborate. A slight irritation with this attraction is that the holes were not completely enclosed with borders (due to making the coarse completely ADA accessible). This meant that it was possible for your ball to leave the hole you were on, and go onto the next hole ahead of you. (As an aside, Coney`s Famous Fairways mini golf has this same problem). And after our fun couple of hours at Krazy City, we ended the day at Tri County Mall with some fruit smoothies at the Freshens Smoothie Company. All in all, we all had a fun time at Krazy City. It is a fun entertainment center to spend a couple hours, without totally blowing the budget. It also offers a nice way to relieve some of the off season blues with some thrill rides like the Skyscraper and the go karts. Definitely worth a visit if you get the chance!

On the subject of Coney`s uniforms. Every seasonal employee is given two uniform shirts for the season. towards the middle of the season, they will take out $22 from your paycheck for a uniform deposit ($11 per shirt). When you return your uniforms at the end of the season, you will get a check for $22. So the core uniform is free as long as you return it. If you want to buy a Coney Hat, pants, belt or a sweatshirt (yes, there have been days at Coney where you want a sweatshirt, even though it has a much shorter season than Kings Island) you are charged for those. You do not have to return them at the end of the season, as they become your property. Those things are also deducted from your paycheck. But, unlike the uniform shirts, you do not get a refund at the end of the season because you do not turn these items back in.

Yep. We had a great time at Krazy City. It was really a fun night! I will get the photo trip report up later today/this evening. The Skyscraper was an extremely fun and fast ride, that had some pops of air too! I don`t know. I think this place can be successful. It will be interesting to see how this place looks and is doing a year from now, and even a couple years from now. I have to be honest that the attached sit down restaurant looked rather empty all night (and way overstaffed).

That`s odd. The link seems to work just fine for me. Yes, Cedar Fair is wanting some compensation from the 49ers for this, and for good reason. Not only would California`s Great America be loosing its overflow parking lot, they would also be loosing some operating days. Cedar Fair would not open the park on days when there are football games, which are Sundays in September and October. This would lead to lost revenue from the Sundays in which the park will sit empty because of the football games. Since Cedar Fair does not own the land that Great America sits on (the Santa Clara Redevelopment Agency actually owns the land) they are looking after their interests. Ultimately, it is not their call, but I`m sure they have stipulations in their lease that gives them some say with the city of Santa Clara about what can be built in the parking lot and what concessions have to be made to keep Cedar Fair happy. (In addition to the lease payments from Cedar Fair, I believe that the city also gets a small percentage of revenue from ticket sales at Great America). So it is in the city`s interest to keep Cedar Fair happy.

I have ridden Mantis several times in several different years at Cedar Point. It literally kills my legs when I ride it because of all the blood rushing to them due to the forces of the ride. Believe it or not, I actually preferred King Cobra over Mantis, because Kings Cobra did not hurt my legs (yes, there were moments of the same sensation, but it wasn`t as intense or any where near as painful).

One of the problems with being open during weekdays in May is staffing. Because a large majority of the seasonal workforce is high school and college age, they can`t operate the park on weekdays in May at any where near capacity. By opening to the public on these math and science days, the park could potentially draw in more people resulting in higher revenues for the park. But there simply isn`t a large enough draw in the Cincinnati area to justify a "festival" of sorts for the education days. It works for Dollywood and Silver Dollar City because those parks are situated in a more touristy area then what Cincinnati and Kings Island are in.

Yes. This was briefly mentioned in another thread. The park will be open to the public on Fridays in May. Those days will also serve, as you mentioned, as the Math and Science days for area schools. Schools can take field trips to Kings Island and learn about some of the science of an amusement park. I got to go to Kings Island on a field trip my senior year, a couple of days before graduation for AP Physics. The best part was, since we were a few days from graduation, we didn`t have any assignments to do while at the park.

You just contradicted your own statement. In your earlier post, you said it was official that Halloween Haunt would be a separate charge. XGatorhead stated that while it was strongly hinted that the event would become a separate charge event, it is still too early to determine what stance Kings Island will take on this issue. Then, in your last post you stated that you can never be sure what Cedar Fair is going to do, which contradicts your earlier post. And on the topic of getting used to Cedar Fair. Yes, last year this time there were some changes that Cedar Fair implemented, but overall I believe they were rather minor in nature. This coming season will see some significant changes at the park with some attractions loosing their Paramount branded names.

Yep. Coney Island Central went live back in July, but has not been heavily promoted on KIC until recently. Keep in mind that you can now directly access Coney Island Central from the following address: coneyislandcentral.com. Coney is a fun little park, with one giant pool and some great flat rides that cannot be found at Kings Island. Definitely worth a visit! Thanks for the kind words about the site. It is another way that KIC (and CIC) are working to give you the best coverage of Kings Island, and the park that actually spawned Kings Island, Coney Island.

First of all, JacksonPKI, leave the moderating and regulating of grammar and spelling to us moderators. Secondly, if you feel you have to correct someone, at least when you are making the correction for grammar, make sure you use the appropriate spelling!

The large reason, in my opinion, that WinterFest failed, is that the park tried to recover a bulk of its capital investment the first year through the pricing. Had they priced it cheaper, to be more in line with the competition would likely have drawn more guests. And had they made a decent profit over several seasons, they could have paid off the capital that was required for all the decorations. Back in the mid 80`s, WinterFest was extremely popular, even drawing more than 337,000 guests for the 1984 run of WinterFest.

Yes, Castaway Bay water park has been closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays since September, minus a few select weeks (like this week and next week). However, how crowded can an indoor water park resort be in the middle of a small town in the winter? I mean, it is not like the population of Sandusky is anywhere near the population of the Cincinnati area. Add to that the equation that Sandusky has two other indoor water parks besides Castaway Bay means there is some pretty stiff competition. However, by contrast Cincinnati has a much larger population but yet only has two indoor water park resorts. Of these two, one offers day passes (Coco Key) while the other requires that you stay in a hotel room to partake in the water park (Great Wolf). Keep in mind, that in the 40s and 50s, Coney Island used to be closed every Monday during the season, mainly to give all of its employees a day off.

No, that is not the hotel he is referring to. Back when Six Flags owned the park, they also owned a hotel (two story white building I believe). I also seem to remember that Cedar Fair inherited this hotel when the purchased GL from Six Flags. I`m not sure what the fate of the hotel was or is, now that GL is going to a water park only property.

They weren`t released. That figure was about how much they were charging when Fear Fest was a separate gate back in 2000, 2001, and 2002. Pass holders could get in for $18 or $19.

Well, having gone to Fear Fest in 2001 and 2002 when it was an upcharge, I have some insights to offer. The crowds were extremely light, especially on nights when the weather was colder. I have a hard time imagining that the park would make more money if they charged admission for it, simply because guests would likely spend less once inside the gates. Additionally, unless significant changes are made to Halloween Haunt in 2008 to differentiate it from the Haunt in 2007, they will likely have a hard sell to the general public about it being an upcharge event, regardless of what they charge to get in. Fear Fest/ Halloween Haunt have been free with park admission for five seasons, so it will be a difficult sell to say "What was included with general admission and your season pass for the last five seasons will now cost you an extra $20 per person per visit. Have a nice time."

Yet another nail in the coffin for this park.

Hmm. I can definitely see Kennywood`s point if the tax was only being administered to them, and not other amusement entities that also likely charge and admission fee. For example, I would venture to say that most Halloween Fright Night attractions are going to charge a fee for guests to gain entry to the attraction. Golf courses would be under the same criteria. This concept of an admissions tax could soon have implications at Kings Island. Mason has been discussing imposing an admissions tax (which would apply to both Kings Island and The Beach), in order to help fund improving infrastructure in the vicinity of these two parks. However, the admissions tax has yet to be enacted by Mason city council, but discussions are continuing.

Another interesting thing to note is the schedule of Great America`s October hours. The park is open from 10am until 5:30 pm. Halloween Haunt will occur from 7-midnight. This implies that Great America`s Halloween Haunt will be a separate upcharge and not included with season passes or general admission. While Kings Dominion`s calendar lists Saturdays as having hours from 10:30 to midnight, which suggests that their event (as has been mentioned elsewhere) will likely be included with general admission and passes. Of course, all these things are subject to change. If Halloween Haunt at Kings Island is an upcharge in 2008, as the popular word on the street has stated it to be, then we will likely see October hours similar to Great America. If, however, they decide to include it free with park admission and season passes, we may well see a schedule similar in nature to Kings Dominion`s. However, as I stated before, it is really too early to tell. Even the Kings Dominion and Great America schedules are subject to change, and will surely change as October 2008 gets closer (ie even after both parks have opened the 2008 season).